Tuesday, April 28, 2015

At the beginning of this month we had a fabulous craftfair in the Netherlands, called Art Specially. This fair is a real treat and I bought myself a few nice stamps and stencils....and I couldn't wait to get home again to play with my new goodies.

At first I made myself a background using the airbrush and my copic markers and some stencils (Dutch Doobadoo, Carabella and Designs by Ryn). The tree was originally indigo blue but I thought it look better in black so I used my copic multiliners to make it black.

The multiliners are wonderful markers for lettering and doodling on your artwork. I used the multiliners for colouring the faery and writing the quote.

The faery and toadstools are by lavinia stamps and the small ones in the background by Carabella.

I coloured the toadstools and wings with the same colours as I used in the background.

I have chosen a limited colourpalette, because I wanted a scenery at sunset

The colours I used are:

B 29,39

BV 08

V 17, 05 , 04

YG 07

The multiliners come in all of different nib sizes and in different colours too.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

It's Faye here, and today, I am sharing a Tutorial on some of the smooshy backgrounds I create.

Before we get started, there are some things to remember...

Generally, I colour my image first, unless I am also colouring the background. In which case, I do the background first. Why? I don't want to accidentally pick up any colour from the image and drag it into the background. If it's a lighter colour, I may be able to correct it. But if I pull brown, grey, or, shock, horror, red, into my background, (especially after spending time colouring the whole image) I'll be crying. Unless the background is supposed to be any of those darker colours with strong pigment!

This technique works really well with colours that are close to each other in number, but when you look at them, there is a big jump in colour and they aren't always easy to blend. Think BG70 and BG72 (which is what I am using here), or to give another example, E81 and E84.

So, let's start!

I have decided to colour one of my favourite images from Tiddly Inks... Fairy Fae Catches a
Star. I want to make her look like she is
floating in the air.

I am going to be messy. No smooth colouring here. The Marker strokes look like this:

Firstly, I am going to give the whole background area a base layer of BG70, using the smooshy, messy strokes:

Next, I want to begin adding some depth of colour to the background using BG72. As I mentioned, although BG70 and BG72 live next door to each other, they don't always play nicely! If I added BG72 directly to the card, it would take a lot of blending to get a smooth transition.

So, I am going to use the Tip to Tip Technique, picking up BG72 on my BG70, keeping the darker BG72 close to my image, and allowing the colour to fade out, as I come away from the image.

I don't want to pick up too much colour on my BG70, typically, my Marker looks like this:

Ahem! Oh dear. Normally my Markers are much cleaner than this!! ;)

I don't worry if I think I've picked up too much colour, I can dab some off onto a piece of scrap paper, which I have nearby.

Now, I begin to add a layer of BG72, using the messy strokes, keeping near to the image, and moving away, as the colour fades:

I continue to work my way around the whole image:

I would like to make some areas of the background (behind Fairy Fae) darker, so I add a second layer of colour:

I still think I could take the area behind Fairy Fae a little darker, so I add a few more touches:

Finally, I colour in the rest of Fairy Fae:

Markers Used...

Background: BG70, BG72

Skin/ Wings: YR000, YR00, E11, E04

Stars: YR30, Y23, YR31, Y35

Dress/ Shoes: RV10, R81, R83, R85

Before I disappear for my breakfast, I thought I would share some other samples of images using this technique.

I also used BG70 and BG72 on this image, but I added many more layers of colour:

I used W1, W3 and W5 on this sample, W1 was the pen which I used to carry the darker colour, and it was almost running dry. It has made the smooshy background look very different:

On this final image, my Markers (B66, B69, B79) were very full and wet:

I hope you have enjoyed my Tutorial and give this Smooshy, Tip to Tip Technique a try.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Jem, also known as Jem and the Holograms, is an American animated television series that ran from 1985 to 1988 in U.S The series is about a music company owner Jerrica Benton, her singer alter-ego Jem, her band the Holograms, and their adventures.

I love this animated serie so much, so I decided to create a manga style look for Jem.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Hello everyone! It's Delphine here today to share a CAS spring scene card using digis by Make It Crafty.

The character I used is Jena Blue Bird from the Meadow Girls Collection. I wanted to make a one layer card with a little something at the top so decided to use Flower Tree Branch by Make It Crafty too, which I pasted several times and sometimes rotated to create the little branch border. I added the Smile sentiment, a digital sentiment by Make It Crafty, then printed my scene and coloured it in Copics.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

I kept the decorating pretty simple to let the image be the main focus on the front of the card. I used papers by Pion Design, flowers by WOK and Hobbykunst, Butterfly by iamroses, dies by Memorybox and the rest is from my stash.

I used this cute Saturated Canary image called Sisters and colored with the no-lines coloring technique. As you probably know by now I love this technique! Here's a work in progress image for you. I love how the characters pop from the page in the process.

BUT even if I want a very light end delicate feeling of the image, I also use the darker colors too when I color! Elizabeth made a very good tutorial on this, showing the difference. So, even if you want a very light look, don´t forget to use the darker colors too, just to get the depth. But don´t use them as much as the lighter ones.